Appeals

SOUTHWARK DIOCESAN BOARD OF EDUCATION

ADMISSION APPEALS - TIMETABLE

The Appeals Code 2012 requires all admission authorities to set out a timetable for appeals and to publish this on the school’s website by 28th February in each school year. The following table sets out the timelines within which appeals must be heard; it is not possible to produce an actual timetable with dates because LAs in the Diocese set different dates for sending out notification of offers/refusals. Schools may wish to devise their own timetable with deadline dates, or use this generic one, but appeals submitted after the deadlines must still be heard in accordance with the timetable, although there must come a time when a very late appeal will fall outside the timetable. In-year applications can obviously happen at any time and appeals while the timescales below must be followed it would not be possible to set any specific dates.

For applications made in the normal admissions round, appeals must be heard within 40 school days of the deadline for lodging appeals.

For in-year and late applications, appeals must be heard within 30 school days of the appeal being lodged. For sixth form appeals, where the offer is conditional on examination results, appeals must be heard within

30 school days of those results being confirmed; where the offer is not conditional on results, the appeal must be heard within 40 school days of the deadline for lodging appeals.

ACTION	DEADLINE
Date by which an appeal must be submitted	At least 20 school days from the date of notification to parent of the refusal of a place
Notice of the date of the appeal hearing	At least 10 school days before the hearing
Evidence and papers for the hearing (i) Date by which evidence must be submitted by appellants; (ii) Date by which evidence must be submitted by the admission authority Date by which the Clerk sends appeal papers to the parents, the panel and the admission authority	The governing body must set reasonable deadlines – the following is a suggestion: 10 school days before the appeal hearing
Additional evidence from the appellants Sometimes appellants wish to provide additional information after seeing all the papers	5 school days before the appeal hearing
Decision Decision letters sent to the Appellants. (The letter that informs the appellant if their appeal has been upheld or refused.)	Within 5 school days of the appeal hearing (whenever possible)